‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ Trailer Preview: Humanity Reaches Out

In Rise of the Planet of Apes, the very first hyper-intelligent primates were held captive in laboratories as their bodies were used as test tubes for medical advances designed to cure human diseases. In Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, things will be very different: humans have been brought low by a virus of their own creation and their numbers are dwindling even as Caesar (Andy Serkis) leads a growing nation of intelligent apes towards becoming the dominant species on Earth.

That doesn’t mean that the upcoming sequel will be all-apes-all-the-time; Jason Clarke and Gary Oldman will also star as members of a faction of surviving humans who reach out to Caesar in the hopes of establishing peaceful relations. Based on the recently-released posters of the apes decked out in war paint, these efforts probably don’t go entirely smoothly.

After what feels like an unbearably long wait, the trailer for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is set for release on Wednesday 18th December at 6AM PST, and to tease its arrival Twentieth Century Fox has released a 12-second preview of the trailer that simply consists of a rainy forest and a single line of dialogue from Clarke ‘s character, Malcolm – presumably the line that will kick off a tumultuous chain of events.

The fact that Malcolm is demanding to speak to Caesar is significant, since it heavily implies that Caesar’s vocabulary has expanded from four simple words into fluent English. We know from previous descriptions of the story that not all of the apes will be so far evolved, which is understandable considering it took Caesar eight years of intense interaction with humans before he managed to speak his first word.

An early set photo from Dawn of the Planet of the Apes showed the scene that this line of dialogue is presumably taken from, with Malcolm and a few of his family members confronting Caesar in the woods. This photo also shows that the apes have taken to riding on horseback, which is interesting considering that the apes themselves were once in servitude to humans. Perhaps this sequel will show the line between the two species beginning to blur.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes arrives in theaters on July 11th, 2014.